Archive for the ‘Japan’ Category

This is a modern, woolly mastodon of a book, a book with tusks and chewing teeth, a throwback to the most towering storytelling in literary history. But it is also a Seraph, a three-paired-winged novel that is full of zeal and respect, humility and ethereal beauty, an airborne creature that gave me five days in heaven. And, it is a sea serpent, because it lifted itself up like a column and it grabbed and swallowed me. Whole.

Sugawara Akitada, an eleventh-century Japanese senior secretary in the Ministry of Justice, is determined to prove the innocence of two men: one, his current retainer who has been arrested for the murder of a blind woman, and two, a convict who died in exile. As he bails out Togo, his accused employee, and searches for deceased convict Haseo’s family, Akitada also contends with a contemptuous superior, Minister Sogo, and the persistent rumors of a small pox epidemic in the city.

In her debut novel, THE FAVORITES, gifted short story writer Mary Yukari Waters finds herself caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Her story of a Japanese family once torn apart by war and now living with the sacrifices of the past examines a culture that protects its вЂњfermented emotionsвЂќ from public view even though the story itself is meant for Americans, a culture that вЂњbelieve(s) it is unhealthy to keep feelings inside.вЂќ And so Ms. Waters carefully constructs a novel devoid of obvious emotion for a readership that craves it.

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